My fave

I have been editing pictures from this year. These are some of my faves. Shout out to my buddy Kristin(whom I've actually never met in person) for showing me how to do this.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

Teacher Thanks

I wasn't going to do it, but I did, at the last minute. As usual.

I got the idea HERE. She's a creative genius.

I called up my talented friend Molly and begged her to whip up a little label for me. I stopped by Wal Mart and got the Avery 25395 name badge labels, and all of the candy--and what do you know? They are cute as can be:



I had seen this project before so I had been keeping Crush bottles--and I had quite a few. My friend Darcy had given me some spray paint--so I painted the lids purple.



I filled them with either M&M's, Skittles or Reeses Pieces. Once my oldest saw them she said, what about the music teacher? and the P.E. teacher . .. and more. So I ran back to the store. By then i had figured out that it is cheaper to go with Skittles, so that is what i bought from then on.



In case you want to make them yourself, I figured it out to be about $2.50 per bottle. You can get a 6 pack of Crush for $2.66 at Wal-Mart. It takes a large bag (14 oz.) of candy to fill it, and has about a handful left over. Skittles are $1.98. M&M bag about the same size was $2.67.

They were fun to make--and I'm totally going to use this gig for everything now.

The girls were so proud handing them out today. And I bought a 6 pack of coke for the Day Janitor who had two clean up Josie's barf this year---twice.

Ungrateful little turd.

Dear Other Mothers,

GRRRR.

I told the girls that when they got home from school today they would have to have their rooms cleaned before they could leave. Josie and Kizzy share a room. So I told Josie that I would have Kizzy clean half of the room, and she'd have to do the other half when she got home.

During the day Kizzy said "Mom, come look I cleaned the room!" And she had. Minus a few random items like a ruler, some game pieces and a few other objects she had stuck in a box on Josie's desk.

So I pick the girls up from the bus stop, and Josie's friend asks her over, so I let her go home with them, but she needed to come get her eye patch. So they walk over to our house and Josie gets on an eye patch, and I show her her room and say, "Kizzy cleaned this for you--isn't that nice of her?"

and Of COURSE--the brattiest of brats says:

"But look what she did--she put a whole bunch of stuff on my desk--that's not cleaning!"

the words " ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" come out of my mouth. And she says, "well--she put all of this stuff on my desk".

So of course my short temper forced my arm to swipe all of the crap off her desk and on the floor. "There--now YOU can clean it up"

Then I let into her about how her reaction should have been to run to Kizzy and say thank you a million times for doing her chores.

And she just kept saying, "well . . but . . well"

And I grabbed her by the back of the neck and told her that she WOULD go and thank Kizzy--and then she would do ALL of Kizzy's chores next week. WITHOUT whining

"well, . . .but . . . well"

Then I said "That's it! You are grounded all of next week--AND you have her chores. Now clean this up."

And then I walked away so I wouldn't pull her hair out.

She has been super rotten lately, and this was the worst.

But now I'm regretting grounding her--because then she's stuck in the house with me for a week.

So I need something more creative--and punishing--something that would help her to remember to be grateful. And not so bratty.

What ideas to you have?

Anyone??

xoxo Me

Over orange chicken

Our dinner conversation:

Josie told us that she learned about the planets, but she couldn't quite remember them all. So Hyrum was helping the girls put them in order. And he got to one and paused and looked at me--as if I'd know the answer.

Me: "Like I'd remember--my memory is bunk".
Hyrum: "It's Saturn"
Annabelle: "Dad--you're the smart one"
Me: "Then what does that make me?"
Annabelle paused: "Uh... the pretty one."

Which was funny in itself--then Kizzy (age4) says to Annabelle "Nailed it."

It was super funny. And then Hyrum said Uranus--and i bust out laughing--immature laughing--and Annabelle said, "What is so funny about Uranus" Baahhhaa--I laughed again, and then she kept asking me and I spent the next 10 minutes trying to make up some sort of other story as to why I was laughing.

Uranus.

Still funny.

For Inspiration

You have to watch this. My college roommate sent it to me, because one of the mothers in it was her friend in High School. And this happens right here in the Valley.

It makes you hopeful for the youth of today. It's a fantastic story.

Michelle S.--you have to watch this, I thought of you when I saw it because your kids do triathlons. You have to get them to watch it--I think they'd like it.

It's a Mormon Message--so you'll hear him use the term "deacon's quorum". That is what they call the age group of 12-13 year old boys in each ward (congregation).

Fair warning--grab a tissue before you press play.



Then if you are local you can join him in his effort:

Share your talents

Do you want one of these? My awesome friend Cami made it available on her blog HERE for free!

If you followed me on Pinterest, you'd already know that.

Check my cool new button on the left.

Leave her some love if you use it. Everyone likes it when people say nice things about how cool they are.

Sort of

I promised pictures:






Annabelle came in with those in the morning. I love that she not only gave me and ipod--but specifically an ipod touch. Everyone needs a child with an imagination like hers.

OH . .. and she also gave Beck a laptop.

Apple visited me

For mothers day I got . .

breakfast in bed

loads of homemade cards,

oh and . . . .

an iphone, ipod touch, and an ipad.

What did you get?

**I'll post pictures once I get them all processed!**

A public mothers day card

I never think to get anything in the mail on time. So my mother will have to do with this.

It is well known among my friends that I have the confidence and self-esteem that is above and beyond what they've ever encountered. I attribute this to 2 things:

My mother and father

So in order to give props to the woman who helped me become such, I will divulge what things she has done to contribute to such a mindset--and also to acknowledge that my brothers and sister are also confident, independent and super likeable.

Ode to my mother:

*She listens. My mom isn't much of a talker. In this she is genius. Because I am a talker. So she would just listen. Now that I am older I realized that I divulged way more to her about the goings on in my life in order to cut silence in a car ride. I think she was able to keep reigns on me, and gauge my danger level because she listened and knew when to actually speak up.

*She doesn't take crap. She doesn't take it from anyone. Not me, not my siblings, not anyone from the outside world. If you choose to try to give her some, you will be dismissed. Dismissed from her presence. She won't come around--nor let you. Thus she surrounds herself with people who are good hearted, fun people. I've done this all my life--it wasn't until I just wrote this that I realized I somehow inherited this from her.

*She serves. She was the pianist/organist in our ward her entire life in some auxilary or another. I really can't remember her having any other calling. That would seriously make me want to stop going. But she loves it and keeps doing it. And when they finally did cut her off--she just about went crazy. But she accepted her next calling--although not enthusiastically--but of course does it like a champ. What a fantastic example this has been to me.

*She expects to be respected. I have never said the word "no" to my mother. NOT EVER. I can't remember ever attempting to do it--so I don't know what would have happened. But I do know that I am still scared to do so. When my mother asks you to do something you do it. Doesn't matter who you are. Son, daughter, son in law, grandchild, best friend from high school--it doesn't matter. She taught me to respect adults. And because of this I am teaching my kids the same.

*She had genius parenting skills. When I was in 7th or 8th grade (in the late 80's) my friend and I discovered the magnificence of eyeshadow. Half pink/half blue eyelids. Hideous. It drove my father CRAZY. And he kept suggesting to my mother that she do something about it. And my mom's response? "Her friends will take care of her". Meaning--they'll make fun of her and then she'll stop. And she never said a word to me about it. And as you notice--I no longer do that. In fact I don't really wear makeup if I don't have to. Genius.

*She has your back. Once my mother lets you in her circle, she will take a knife to anyone who wrongs you in anyway. (she hasn't ever really knifed anyone--that I know of). My point is that she is a good friend and relative. She is loyal and will do anything to help anyone that she loves.

*She taught all of her kids to deal with reality. Although I don't think she uses these terms--"suck it up" or "be a man", those are the things I'm talking about. We weren't allowed to whine--about anything. Just get it done and deal with it. So, as far as I know, my siblings nor I sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. Sucky things happen--to everyone. Deal with it. I remember a specific time when I was told by a doctor that I wasn't able to have children (which is a fantastic story if I ever get around to telling it), and I told her that everything was going to be fine. And most mothers would try to soften the blow--not my mom. Thinking that I was in denial, she patted my hand and said, "you need to deal with this." And I did, and I'm all the better for it.

*She can do hard things. She took all 4 of us kids to church every week by herself. I dread the days that Hyrum works on Sundays because it is hard. And she did it. Bravo to you mother.

*She doesn't sweat the small stuff. My mother set VERY CLEAR rules and boundaries in our house. My curfew was midnight. Not 12:01. Midnight. Period. And when I overstepped those boundaries I suffered consequences. But other than that--she was pretty hands off. She let us govern ourselves within the boundaries her and my dad had set. And this made us all very independent and capable people.

*She didn't fight our battles. My mom would defend us if she needed to, but other than that we were expected to fight out own battles. I had friends whose moms would call other moms when they got into tiffs. And girls get into tiffs--all the time. My mom didn't. It was my business, my doing, my situation, and I was left to deal with it. And that helped me so much as an Adult knowing that I was capable to deal with the crap that was dealt to me.

*She's Independent. I'm not worried about my mother. She is quite capable of taking care of herself, and as I wrote before, she can deal with stuff--just like she taught us to. It's nice to know that if something ever went down--she'd be alright. Because as she always says, "I am a big girl. I can take care of myself." Which usually means leave her alone. I get that. I am that. I am a very independent person. I can deal with stuff by myself, I can go places by myself (like when I travelled for 2 weeks without my travel companion in Europe), I can be by myself. My sister is the same. We are big girls--because our mother taught us to be.

So as you can see I have big shoes to fill in my own children's lives. Was my mother perfect? No. But luckily my memory sucks so bad I can't remember her doing anything bad. I only hope that I can be half the mother mine is.

And mom: I may not look like you, AT ALL. But turns out I'm more like you than we both ever knew.

Love you lots.

xoxo Me.

Patch #2

Remember last year when I had to patch jeans? Well I patched them super cute with printed fabric. Trouble is, that one of my daughters plays hard at recess and those too got holes in them. Fastforward to this year. It's the end of the year, and I just got a call from her teacher letting me know that she has come to school for 3 days straight with holes in her jeans. (who friggin cares? it's the end of the year, I bet all of the kids with high waters aren't getting phone calls). But whatever, rules are rules. So I got together with my friend Julia. And we patched. This time I cut up an old pair of jeans and used that denim to make patches. Still turned out cute. Not as cute as fun prints, but still cute.



Want to makes some of your own? Here's how:

Get some Ultra Heat n'Bond. You can get it at a fabric store. It's usually prepackaged.

Get an old pair of jeans.

Get cookie cutters for shapes.

Take a big section of the jeans and follow the instructions on the heat n'bond to get it to stick to the denim.

Then trace your cookie cutters, then cut out the shape.

Iron it on to the hole in pants.

Then take some embroidery thread and do a whip stitch around the edge, or a straight stitch on the inside. I used colorful ones one some, and cream colored on others.

And then if you do this . . .

you may not get a call from the teacher.




***note*** I am so glad my daughter goes to a school where she doesn't get made fun of for this. In fact her friends thought it was pretty cool.